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Steven Spielberg names the one movie he’s made that he thinks is ‘pretty perfect’

’It’s one of the few movies I’ve made that I can actually look back at again and again,’ director said

Jacob Stolworthy
Saturday 04 March 2023 11:55 GMT
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The Fabelmans stars reflect on 'once in a lifetime' job working with Steven Spielberg

Even Steven Spielberg has to admit that one of his films is “pretty perfect”.

The director has made 34 films since 1971, many of which are considered classics. These include Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

However, Spielberg says that he finds it tought to re-watch his movies – but there’s one he has revisisted that he knows is undeniably excellent.

“I don’t look a lot at my movies after I’ve made them,” he told The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, adding: “I don’t look back too often but every once in a while I’ll see a movie with my kids.”

He explained that he wanted to “comfort my kids when they watched ET for the first time,” adding: “I don’t want them to see ET without dad sitting there – especially with the scary parts at the beginning.”

Whereas Spielberg might otherwise find the experience of rewatching one of his films a gruelling one, he actually enjoys it when he watches back the 1982 film, fully titled ET: The Extra-Terrestrial.

“Sometimes I see things that I had intended to do that i didn’t do, and sometimes I see things that would have been a better idea than what I’m now seeing all these years later – but for the most part, ET is a pretty perfect movie,” he said.

He continued: “It’s one of the few movies I’ve made that I can actually look back at again and again.”

The filmmaker revealed he’s made “only a handful of movies I can watch more than once”.

“I’ve made like 34 films and – I’m not gonna name which ones they are beyond ET – there’s about five or six films that I can watch again, but I don’t usually do that.”

‘ET: The Extra-Terrestrial' (Universal Pictures)

Spielberg’s other acclaimed credits include Jurassic Park, Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report, AI: Artificial Intelligence, Catch Me If You Can and, most recently, The Fabelmans.

For The Fabelmans, which is nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, he received his seventh Best Director nomination. He’s previously won twice, for Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan in 1994 and 1999, respectively.

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